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Salsa Club trains for dance contest

Students shake and twirl as they repeat in their minds the numbered sequence, “one two three, five six seven” of renowned choreographer Kazumi DeVries teaching salsa dancing in front of them.

Sue Lagarde / Daily Titan

All are welcome to Wednesday Night Meetups at the Kinesiology
and Health Science building for salsa classes that the Salsa Club hosts,
which has been a student organization since Fall 2010.

They also host the Salsa Academy every Friday starting at 7:15 p.m., for students of all levels and practices for the Competitive Salsa Team.

The competitive group, however, practices on Saturdays and Wednesdays and is only open to students.

Joshua Mendoza, 28, who is triple majoring in information systems
and decision sciences, marketing, and finance, president and founder
of the Salsa Club, said the club has a variety of opportunities for
aspiring dancers or beginners.

“The Salsa Academy is much more concentrated, it’s faster pace.
You’ll learn salsa in a short amount of time,” said Mendoza. “It’s more
focused on the detail and technical aspects of salsa, whereas the
Wednesday classes are more relaxed and acts like a lab where you can ask questions.”

Mendoza is part of the Competitive Salsa Team who meets on Fridays and Saturdays and aspires to compete at the College Salsa Congress.

“We usually only allow students to represent us for the team,”
Mendoza said. “We’re considered student athletes so we want to make sure
they’re from Cal State Fullerton.”

According to Mendoza, the College Salsa Congress brings together
about 18 to 20 CSU and UC schools, as well as the community colleges
from Southern California and Sacramento areas in a competition that
results in a grand prize of $1,000.

“The competition is very fierce,” Mendoza said.

The College Salsa Congress is held at the end of April in Long
Beach. CSUF’s competitive salsa group competed last year but opted out
of placing.

This year, with the help of Kazumi DeVries, the salsa club
director and advisor, Mendoza said he feels they have a really good
chance to improve and really show people how hard the team has been
working.

“I had an off campus event that I organized and the president
came to take my lesson and he really liked it,” said DeVries. “We kind
of first started during the summer as a try-out, to see if they
really liked how I teach, and then in the end they really wanted me
to be their coach.”

This is Kazumi’s second year of teaching.

Her goal, she said, is to help the young dancers be the best that they can be and be held to the highest standard.

“I wanted to start from scratch because if I am going to be
involved, my goal, since these are young people that I’m handling and
not adults like my off-campus team, I want to make sure that the
standard is really (morally) high,” DeVries said.

“I want to make sure my students are up to skill, and have a
really good experience,” she added. “I want to make sure they are
trained enough for next year when they are ready to compete.”

According to DeVries, the way she has the program set up is that
for those who want to join the Competitive Salsa Team, students first have
to join the Wednesday night class, which is set up to teach
fundamentals.

Once students feel comfortable enough, they can move up to Friday’s class, which is more advanced.

From there, she will move them up to the competitive salsa team if they desire to compete.

“Fall semester is usually a training session,” DeVries said.

She begins with teaching basic skills, and on to higher skills, then slowly progresses to a routine.

By Spring semester, the group will have the routine down and practice hard to polish it up for the College Salsa Congress.

Second semester competitive dancer Amanda Tran, 19, an
international business major, has joined the club and competitive
dance team for various reasons, including to make new friends and to
learn a dance skill she has never had before.

“First I joined the club and went to meet ups on Wednesdays,
because I had no idea how to dance salsa,” said Tran. “I realized I
enjoyed dancing a lot.”

Tran was a student who started off as a beginner and worked her
way up to the competitive level through her progress, which DeVries
took notice of.

“I’m so excited to get a new routine, something to challenge me and to push me to be a better dancer,” Tran said.